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If you’ve been active in keyboard enthusiast communities recently, such as r/mechanicalkeyboards you might have noticed a bit of a resurgence of interest around Holy panda switches over the last few weeks. You might have also noticed some furor around the new Holy Panda X, as it takes strong influence from the original Holy Panda switches, but, according to some outlets such as ThereminGoat, the Holy Panda X switches do not perform nearly as well.
There is some additional intrigue surrounding the ‘Panda’ name too, as Glorious got into a little bit of trouble with the release of their Tactile Glorious panda switch a couple of years ago. It’s a long story, but the short version goes like this: Glorious wanted to make their own switches and decided to ape the ‘Holy Panda’ name. This is not a bad thing in and of itself as this is mostly how new switches are made, replicate a successful switch, and then slightly modulate the design to produce something distinct from the inspiration. So, what did Glorious do to anger the community?
Glorious Panda switches
The issue stems from the stem. The original Holy Panda switches had whats known as a halo stem, which is what made them so distinctly tactile, it’s also what lead to the name: Halo = Holy. So, when Glorious decided to replicate the Holy Panda design they decided to forgo the halo stem in favor of using their own stem. Not a problem at all, the problem came from their naming of the switch as they called it the ‘Glorious Holy Panda’. This was met with much backlash from the community as it was deemed disingenuous because the lack of a halo stem produced a different tactile feeling, but people were expecting that distinct ‘halo’ feeling in the switch because of the name, only to realize that it just wasn’t there.
Additionally, they filed a trademark for the name ‘Holy Panda’ and once people realized this they were particularly irritated at the perceived predatory nature of said trademark. After the backlash Glorious withdrew their trademark application and instead went forward to trademark ‘Glorious Panda’ instead. They issued a full apology on Reddit that won the favor of the mechanical keyboard community once again and the controversy was sorted.
Glorious Panda switches vs Holy Panda Switches
Ok, so with the brief history lesson over, let’s see how the switches differ, and what the removal of the halo stem has meant tactility-wise.
Glorious Panda switch specs
- Style: Tactile switch
- Actuation force: 67g
- Stem: POM, less pre-travel to tactile bump
- Mount: Plate mount (3-pin)
- Housing: White, Opaque
Holy Panda switch
From here we can see that the switches are all but identical when it comes to specs, but the stem is where it all breaks down. The reason for the popularity of the Holy Panda switch was the extreme snappiness of the textile bump, all because of the halo stem. The original Holy Panda switches were what the community calls a ‘frankenswitch’, meaning multiple parts from pre-existing switches combined to create something new, or not new, depending on how you look at it. Holy pandas were created with the combination of an Invyr Panda housing and a stem/slider from a Halo True. Add a halo to a panda and the bear turns holy.
Holy Panda switch specs
- Style: Tactile switch
- Actuation force: 67g
- Stem: Halo stem, from True Halo switch
- Mount: Plate mount (3-pin)
- Housing: White, Opaque
Glorious Holy Panda switches controversy
We gave you the short version above, but there is a little bit more to it. For a more well-rounded overview of the whole situation that arguably helped put Panda switches back on the map, we recommend the video below from JTTR as it contains a little more detail than we have time to discuss here.
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